" Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. "
These are the last lines in one of the most detailed and controversial coming-of-age tales of all time, "The Catcher in the Rye." The story follows the ups and downs of high school dropout Holden Caulfield. The book picks up at Pencey Prep School, an academy full of "phonies" according to the depressed narrator. He was forbidden to return to the school after the Christmas break due to failing grades. His only decent grade was in English, a class that he found he was most prolific and talented at. The book then goes into detail of his final night there. What makes these characters great are their flaws. Take Caulfield's sexually deviant roommate Stradlater for example: He is described as being quite a flirtatious fellow, but has difficulty holding down a steady relationship at any given time. Another interesting character is Ackley, their next door neighbor. Ackley frequently comes into Caulfield's room without permission, and clips his toenails where ever he sees fit.
After Caulfield leaves the school, he has around three days before he goes home and tells his parents about his expulsion. He has gone through many schools and is clearly afraid of the storm awaiting him in his New York apartment. One thing that the protagonist does not like to talk about is his past. He briefly tells of his eldest brother D.B. and his screenwriting career in Hollywood. He says that his brother is "prostituting" his talents by doing this, as Caulfield absolutely despises films. Caulfield's journey leads him through a treacherous path of fear and loneliness. One particularly frightful sequence takes place in a seedy hotel in downtown New York. An elevator operator named Maurice offers Caulfield a prostitute for five dollars a "throw." He reluctantly accepts and goes back to his room to get ready, but when the prostitute enters his room, he turns her away out of fear. He does give her the five dollars, however. Later that evening, Maurice shows up and says that Caulfield still owes him five dollars. Naturally he claims his innocence and tells Maurice to leave the room immediately. The disgruntled bellman hits Caulfield and leaves. This introduces a recurring motif in the novel: Holden Caulfield's hallucinations. He goes to the bathroom, pretending to have been shot, holding in his "guts". He fills the bathtub and submerges himself in the water. Later in the novel he describes himself walking across a street to get to a museum while saying, "Don't let me disappear Allie. Don't let me disappear." Allie is his younger brother who passed away a few years prior from Leukemia. These false realities are definitely one of his many flaws. After his brother died, Caulfield describes himself breaking windows with his fist in his garage, thusly leaving him with weak and pain-ridden hands.
Caulfield is also an avid boozer and smoker, despite only being sixteen years of age. There is a humorous scene in which he tries to pick up some women at a nightclub below the aforementioned hotel. The one girl he dances with is a blonde who cannot hear so well, and he ends up talking to himself for a long while unknowingly. After buying them numerous rounds of alcoholic drinks, the girls leave him there alone. Another interesting part of the story is his constant desire to call his good friend Jane Gallagher, but never gets around to it. He is always "Not in the right mood." She is very important, though, as she is the only girl he respects or finds mildly attractive. The final segment of the book takes place at an apartment belonging to his old teacher at a previous school. This teacher tries to talk Caulfield into accepting the world for what it is, but he doesn't want to truly take in what he is saying. Caulfield's future at this point is indefinite, and his depression and sense of loss increases into the final words of the book: "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
Why the book is outstanding...
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
At first glance, there really isn't much to "The Catcher in the Rye." Holden Caulfield never really does anything amazing, and he begins the book the same way he ends it: Depressed. But that is what truly makes this novel a classic. The fact that this book came out in the 1940's is remarkable to say the least. The way Salinger describes scenes and characters is in a realm of its own. It is difficult to read the book without relating to Caulfield in some way. There is not a single part of the book that does not seem as though it was written from the heart.
Why I would recommend this book...
"This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started."
"The Catcher in the Rye" is admittedly not for everyone. Curse words and sexual themes can be found in abundance in almost every page. But aside from that, there is not a single person that can read this book and say that they have not learned a little something about themselves. Holden Caulfield shares so many qualities with myself and others that I know. I believe that my writing skill has increased after reading this story. It is also very short if that is a concern. This was literally a book that was difficult to put down. This is great tale for the cynic in all of us.
About the author...
" It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.
Credited to "Blue Hyrangeas"
J.D. Salinger was born in1919 in Manhattan, New York. He wrote numerous short stories before serving in World War II, but "The Catcher in the Rye" was his first true novel. Due to the success of the book he became extremely reclusive, and only published four more novels. It is believed that he is still alive today, making him 87.
The Catcher in the Rye
Book By J.D. SalingerReport By Nigel Carleton
Summary...
" Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. "
These are the last lines in one of the most detailed and controversial coming-of-age tales of all time, "The Catcher in the Rye." The story follows the ups and downs of high school dropout Holden Caulfield. The book picks up at Pencey Prep School, an academy full of "phonies" according to the depressed narrator. He was forbidden to return to the school after the Christmas break due to failing grades. His only decent grade was in English, a class that he found he was most prolific and talented at. The book then goes into detail of his final night there. What makes these characters great are their flaws. Take Caulfield's sexually deviant roommate Stradlater for example: He is described as being quite a flirtatious fellow, but has difficulty holding down a steady relationship at any given time. Another interesting character is Ackley, their next door neighbor. Ackley frequently comes into Caulfield's room without permission, and clips his toenails where ever he sees fit.
After Caulfield leaves the school, he has around three days before he goes home and tells his parents about his expulsion. He has gone through many schools and is clearly afraid of the storm awaiting him in his New York apartment. One thing that the protagonist does not like to talk about is his past. He briefly tells of his eldest brother D.B. and his screenwriting career in Hollywood. He says that his brother is "prostituting" his talents by doing this, as Caulfield absolutely despises films. Caulfield's journey leads him through a treacherous path of fear and loneliness. One particularly frightful sequence takes place in a seedy hotel in downtown New York. An elevator operator named Maurice offers Caulfield a prostitute for five dollars a "throw." He reluctantly accepts and goes back to his room to get ready, but when the prostitute enters his room, he turns her away out of fear. He does give her the five dollars, however. Later that evening, Maurice shows up and says that Caulfield still owes him five dollars. Naturally he claims his innocence and tells Maurice to leave the room immediately. The disgruntled bellman hits Caulfield and leaves. This introduces a recurring motif in the novel: Holden Caulfield's hallucinations. He goes to the bathroom, pretending to have been shot, holding in his "guts". He fills the bathtub and submerges himself in the water. Later in the novel he describes himself walking across a street to get to a museum while saying, "Don't let me disappear Allie. Don't let me disappear." Allie is his younger brother who passed away a few years prior from Leukemia. These false realities are definitely one of his many flaws. After his brother died, Caulfield describes himself breaking windows with his fist in his garage, thusly leaving him with weak and pain-ridden hands.
Caulfield is also an avid boozer and smoker, despite only being sixteen years of age. There is a humorous scene in which he tries to pick up some women at a nightclub below the aforementioned hotel. The one girl he dances with is a blonde who cannot hear so well, and he ends up talking to himself for a long while unknowingly. After buying them numerous rounds of alcoholic drinks, the girls leave him there alone. Another interesting part of the story is his constant desire to call his good friend Jane Gallagher, but never gets around to it. He is always "Not in the right mood." She is very important, though, as she is the only girl he respects or finds mildly attractive. The final segment of the book takes place at an apartment belonging to his old teacher at a previous school. This teacher tries to talk Caulfield into accepting the world for what it is, but he doesn't want to truly take in what he is saying. Caulfield's future at this point is indefinite, and his depression and sense of loss increases into the final words of the book: "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
Why the book is outstanding...
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
At first glance, there really isn't much to "The Catcher in the Rye." Holden Caulfield never really does anything amazing, and he begins the book the same way he ends it: Depressed. But that is what truly makes this novel a classic. The fact that this book came out in the 1940's is remarkable to say the least. The way Salinger describes scenes and characters is in a realm of its own. It is difficult to read the book without relating to Caulfield in some way. There is not a single part of the book that does not seem as though it was written from the heart.
Why I would recommend this book...
"This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started."
"The Catcher in the Rye" is admittedly not for everyone. Curse words and sexual themes can be found in abundance in almost every page. But aside from that, there is not a single person that can read this book and say that they have not learned a little something about themselves. Holden Caulfield shares so many qualities with myself and others that I know. I believe that my writing skill has increased after reading this story. It is also very short if that is a concern. This was literally a book that was difficult to put down. This is great tale for the cynic in all of us.
About the author...
" It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.
J.D. Salinger was born in1919 in Manhattan, New York. He wrote numerous short stories before serving in World War II, but "The Catcher in the Rye" was his first true novel. Due to the success of the book he became extremely reclusive, and only published four more novels. It is believed that he is still alive today, making him 87.